Hans & Stacey, 25 September 2011
France , St Jean de Luz 25°

Newsletter 6

Newsletter 6
Europe September 2011

Cheers to all our friends and family!

During our remaining few weeks on the European continent we have concentrated our travels in the Aquitaine of France (south western region). Again we found enormous variety of landscape, architecture, history, food production and cuisine. There are so many regions (called departments) within regions it’s difficult to recognise their borders except when you enter the land of the Basque – more on that later.

We first travelled through the land of the Bastides (medieval villages such as with fortification walls dating back hundreds of years). The surprising thing is that these villages are still functioning as communities with schools, churches, town halls, etc. They all have bakeries; most have butchers, green grocers & other shops providing for the local community. Some are more “touristy” than others but the locals go about their daily business negotiating their way through the myriad of gawkers and “photographers”. They are all very polite and Bonjour is extended to all visitors.

There are roads littered with incredible Chateaux with many open to visitors.

Every “department” displays some unique feature with pride. The villages dress their squares and avenues with flowers and cascading baskets of colour. The countryside is awash with grapevines, crops or green pastures and contented animals; not to mention the forests and flowing rivers.

Hans had fond memories of a fine red wine called St Emilion so we had to visit the village of the same name and to our great pleasure found it stunning. The old buildings, narrow cobbled streets and even narrower lanes were a sun bleached pale stone mined locally. The limestone soil is particularly good for fine red wines.

Another area we enjoyed immensely was The Perigord – full of amazing villages (Brantome 8th century, Villefranches founded 1261, and the list goes on with too many to mention. As we continued through the countryside we were constantly awed by the natural beauty of the landscape and the creative, historic beauty of the villages.

A fascinating discovery was the round dry stone huts at Breuil (occupied by Benedictine monks till 15th century & estimated to be over 750yrs), because we saw similar huts in Italy (Alberobello) near Brindisi that are 4,000 years old so the French ones are mere infants but interesting nevertheless.

Now to the Basque – this region is immediately recognisable by its distinctive architecture (similar to Swiss chalets) painted white with red or green trim. The Pyrenees Mountains are ever present in the landscape. It has its own language (in a similar vein to Spain where they have Catalan and Spanish) and the Basque flag resembles the Uk flag with its colours being white, red & green. The regional emblem is the chilli pepper (red & green) but their cuisine encompasses everything French from Foie Gras to wild boar terrines, wines, unbelievable variety of fish and delicious variety of breads.


We travelled south, towards our departure point of Santander, along the Basque coast stopping at a beach resort at Labenne, then continuing through Biarritz and stopping at St Jean de Luz (another sensational town) for a few days to explore the district.

In a few days we will be boarding the ferry from Santander (Spain) to the UK and our great European adventure comes to an end.

When in England we will be busy preparing the van for the new owners Nigel and Miranda Wood and their two children, they are from Sydney so the van will stay in Aussie hands. We wish them all the best and hope they too will enjoy their Europe adventures as much as we have.

We then have about a week to look around some of the UK before our return home so the holiday will be over but our memories will remain with us forever.

Cheers to all,
Stacey & Hans.